Herm as askesis: prosthetic conditions of painting

This research project asks how a consideration of Greek herm sculpture can be put to use inexploring prosthetic conditions of painting. This question is addressed through a series of essaysand a body of studio-based art work, undertaken at the RCA from 2010 to 2015.The written submission contains a series of interconnected essays, through which prostheticconditions of painting are explored via Greek herm sculpture, in order to reassess the work ofcontemporary and historical painter’s practices. The first chapter looks to a history of hermsculpture, focusing on the roles it has performed around the age of Alcibiades, of Athens 4 B.C.This assessment is aided by Michel Foucault’s notion of askesis and Pierre Hadot’s work onspiritual exercises. They enable a shift, from understanding the herm as a physical object to thehistorical roles it has performed in Greek culture — as a desecrated object, boundary-marker,object of ritual and, via its connection to hermes, a means of interpretation, bodily passage andtransition. I address a collection of essays ‘Six Memos for the Next Millennium’, by Italo Calvino,and his connection to The Workshop for Potential Literature (Oulipo), in order to understand theuse of literary restraints as exercises which offer a preliminary guide to how the herm can be usedin this project. Through Foucault, Hadot and Calvino, the herm transitions from object to an askesis— undertaking tasks that perform in essays and paintings.The subsequent essays focus on the work of Lynda Benglis, Orlan, Caravaggio, François Boucherand Imi Knoebel, addressed through contemporary thinkers that undertake considerations of theprosthetic. The intersection of material culture studies, feminist theory, disabilities studies and poststructuralism,offer a view to the prosthetic that creates a platform for a reconsideration of theseartists’ work. The herm becomes a silent guide in this project, understanding the prosthetic asimbedded in ideas of the relational — sensitive to the way in which body and paint, silicone andskin can adjoin, supplant, intersect, enhance and compensate, between subjects and objects. Byinserting the prosthetic into narratives that question the relationships between bodies, objects andsurfaces in these artist’s work — and in asking what they can produce — this project explores andarticulates prosthetic conditions of painting.